Thursday, January 25, 2007

If Only

Imagine how things might be so different today if Bush/Cheney had popped their heads up above their ideology to take a look at the real world.

The greatest, single cause of their failure in Afghanistan and Iraq has been their indifference to the prosecution of these conflicts. If only they'd cared.

If they had cared, Bush would have flooded Afghanistan with the soldiers and resources needed to oust the Taliban and al-Qaeda and stabilize that country to ensure it became a place where the extremists could not return.

If they had cared, they wouldn't have even bothered with Iraq until Afghanistan was the real deal, the "mission accomplished." Don't you think it curious that Bush had no celebratory photo op to commemorate the total victory in Afghanistan?

If they had cared, they would have paid some heed to their advisors - civilian, military, governmental - who gave them every warning about what could go wrong in Iraq and the fundamental flaws in their approach.

If they had cared, they would have tried to figure out what was going wrong from the moment everything started going sideways instead of dummying up for four years, claiming victory was in sight.

If they had cared, they would have realized you can't promise the people a quick and tidy victory and then fail to deliver.

If they had cared, they would have understood the very narrow limits of American public opinion and treated their window of opportunity as a matter of precious minutes, even seconds.

They didn't care.

If they had cared:

- They would have tried to make sense of the Middle East- They would have worked out how to minimize the loss of American and civilian lives- They would have formulated a strategy that wasn't driven by election interests in 2004 and 2006- They would have acknowledged that you can't cut taxes and wage an enormously expensive war without shortchanging generations to come.

They didn't care, and they still don't:

- They've had the problems studied at length by various groups and they've consistently ignored the advice given- They've ignored the realities on the ground in the Middle East- They've chosen to play out their term in a "stay the course" mode that they try to dress up as something different- To indulge their whims and fanatical ideologies they've ensured that the world they leave behind them will be a much more dangerous and unstable place- They have tacitly accepted defeat but only so long as the next administration has the honour of bearing the dishonour.